The Spirit of ’68 Lives On: Zionism as racism, and the network of lies

This article is the second in a series by Dr. Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi on a federal complaint filed against her, the California State University Board of Trustees, and the San Francisco State University by the Lawfare Project, a self-described “legal arm for the pro-Israel community” whose executive director affirmed that its objective is to “make the enemy pay.”

The lawsuit disregards the findings of the University and independent investigator and falsely alleges that San Francisco State University is one of “the most anti-Semitic campuses in the country.” This series examines the actors and incidents behind the lawsuit.

Zionism as Racism, and the Network of Lies

The Israel lobby has a pattern of exploiting anti-Semitism to sneak in justifications for the unjustifiable Israeli settler-colonial project that has uprooted and displaced Palestinians.

The same logic applies to the totality and the different moving parts of a lawsuit filed against me and the San Francisco State University on June 19, 2017 by the Lawfare Project, a pro-Israel firm that is representing students and other plaintiffs who allegedwrongdoing on the part of the university in a series of events that span nearly three-decades–incidentally, well before I began teaching and the plaintiffs enrolled at SFSU.

The manufactured allegations against me (as well as those against Palestinian students and other student advocates for justice in Palestine who are described in the lawsuit) have already been proven to be just that—unfounded allegations.

Not surprisingly then, most of the citations in the lawsuit are drawn from other discredited members of the same pro-Israel network. In a 2015 report, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) exposed the Lawfare Project and the small but well-connected pro-Israel industry network that is funded by right-wing multi millionaires such as the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the Bradley Foundation and mega-donor of the Democrat party, Haim Saban. The network also includes the AMCHA Initiative whose discredited director claims African American Studies and Ethnic Studies programs in institutions of higher education “help to pave the way for the dramatic increase in campus antisemitism,” David Horowitz, Campus Watch, Stand With Us, the Zionist Organization of America, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Middle East Forum, the David Project, the Brandeis Center, Hillels on campuses, the Lawfare Project, and the Anti-Defamation Leagues (ADL). The manufactured allegations against me (as well as those against Palestinian students and other student advocates for justice in Palestine) have already been proven to be just that—unfounded allegations.

Students at UCLA commemorate Israel’s founding, May 2015. (Photo: Monica Almeida/The New York Times)

The first incident in the complaint focuses on the April 6, 2016, protest of the campus visit of the racist Likud mayor of occupied Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, by a coalition of students from Indigenous, Black, Latinx, Asian, Jewish and generally anti-war and justice-minded students led by members of the General Union of Palestine Students.

SFSU’s response to the protest was to bring an investigator hired by President Wong last spring to look into the Barkat affair. The investigation found that the student protest was against Barkat and targeted Israeli policies but had nothing to do with anti-Semitism. While the investigator found that protesters did disrupt the speech, it also found that it was never clear that the protesting students had been asked to stop the disruption by anyone they knew to be a university official. Equally important the independent investigator also found that SFSU engaged in the selective application of student conduct guidelines by subjecting two Palestinian female students to a hearing for using a bullhorn while not applying the same policy regarding amplified sound to other cases. As SFSU VP for Student Affairs said, during her time at SFSU no student had ever been suspended or expelled for the use of amplified sound. The names, faces, Facebook pages and other information of the two young women along with 4 other student protesters and a former GUPS president at SFSU were placed on the Canary Mission Website and the Palestinian female students were subjected to threats of sexual violence/rape. They sought support from the university but to my knowledge, the only thing the university offered was an escort by the University Police Department that has -systematic harassed –faculty and students of color. Saliem Shehadeh’s excellent thesis (forthcoming Duke University Press) documents this and more brilliantly.

The second incident the lawsuit cites to establish its false allegations zeroes in on the “Know Your Rights” Fair, that was held on February 28, 2017. Organized by a number of student groups, lecturers and programming staff, whose work calls attention to and struggles for justice for historically marginalized and underrepresented communities, especially communities that have been directly impacted by Trump’s presidential campaign and subsequent victory, including Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism, anti-immigrant and undocumented students, and gender and sexual justice. The KYR Ffair was rightly supported by our local chapter of our union, the California Faculty Association, and other colleges and departments. Students took careful care to invite diverse speakers and community organizations whose work to address the urgent issues of the time, especially the Muslim ban, the attack on Sanctuary cities and physical self-defense for targeted Women and Trans persons on college campuses. The organizers of the KYR Fair sought to provide a much-needed service to the campus community on the rights students, faculty, and staff and the ways in which Trump policies might impact those rights. In essence, the student-staff-lecturer coalition stood in for and initiated the much-needed education which the university, as a public institution, should have provided. CSU did issue a statement upon Trump’s election in November declaring its opposition to discrimination. That was a good step. Rhetoric, however, needs to be backed up by action. Here, it was SFSU students and faculty who began to organize the KYR Fair over their winter break while the university closed down for the holidays. Various community organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Planned Parenthood, La Raza Centro Legal, ACLU, and Asian Law Caucus were welcomed in the fair. JVP’s table was intentionally tabling between GUPS and AMED Studies. As David Spero shows in his jweekly.com article, JVP set up a table, handed out literature and signed up 14 students who expressed interest in forming a local SFSU JVP chapter, including members of SF Hillel. The organizers did not invite Hillel to table at the already overbooked event. The KYR Fair did not exclude Jewish students or community members.

The lawsuit complains about Hillel’s inability to officially participate as a tabling organization in the KYR Fair. The essential question to me is: On what basis should Hillel have participated in such an activity?

The organizers, prompted by Palestinian students, invited Jewish speakers and organizations. Palestinian students were deliberate and intentional about including Jewish speakers and organizations to underscore the long-held Palestinian belief and practice that our struggle for our liberation has never been against Jews but against the Zionist settler-colonial project that has uprooted and displaced Palestinians from their land, turning them into homeless refugees overnight and that continues to try to erase their existence on their land to this very day. In this, Palestinian students were not following a simplistic formula of bringing US Jews and Indigenous Palestinians together in a photo opportunity to normalize a violent and genocidal colonialism or engage in some superficial kum bayah moment. Historically, it has been a Zionist practice to take photos of Palestinians and then recycle them as evidence that Palestinians, like other colonized and oppressed people, are basking in their colonialism and in fact are grateful to their oppressors for bringing them from the “dark ages” to the bright sunshine of modernity. This operates for both propaganda purposes as well as making colonists who are on the sidelines feel better about their belonging to groups that benefit from oppression.

Obviously, Palestinians are not the first nor will be the last colonized people who are exploited in this manner. Why does this happen though? Are we so naïve to agree to further our own oppression? In my view, there are at least two reasons. First, unfortunately, it is drilled in our psyche to be hospitable and not to say no to polite requests. Not unlike other communities whose members have not been completely atomized into discrete individuals by capitalist relations, we tend to engage in apologizing to those who step on our feet in the New York Subway, push us on the sidewalks or cut us off as we drive. We stop, at least I do, to wonder why did we do this? I always blame it on my mother (RIP) who taught us to be polite. But it also does happen because of an innate special gene colonized communities possess but because the power relations between the colonizers and the colonized tilts in favor of the colonizers in Palestine, the U.S. and everywhere until things change radically and tip the balance. These relationships were challenged by the spirit of ’68 that inspires us to resist such colonial relations. Then we begin to tell the stories of liberation and decolonization of the mind (on National Culture) and of the narrative itself. This happened recently during the inquisition of the “Know Your Rights” Fair: the University investigator would tell the students and faculty under interrogation what he thought he heard them say, or more accurately what his conditioning wanted him to hear them say. He would then proceed to view his interpretation of what he thought he heard as the truth irrespective of what those being interrogated said and despite the fact that they would, again and again, express their frustration and tell him that he did not hear what they said nor accurately interpreted what they meant but rather put his own spin on it. This would have been a comical theatrical performance if it were not for the dangerous outcome that such a setup produces. Here the interrogator comes to the interrogation room with a hegemonic definition of the situation, accepting and not having a reason to question the terms the accusers select for their accusations, when they deliberately use Israel, Jewish State, Jews, Jewishness, Zionism interchangeably. He does this not because he wants to be Islamophobic, anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian as he does not want to be seen nor does he see himself as anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-women or anti-queer. He is rather a product of the system who may have gone through one sensitivity workshop if any but may not have had more than a course or two that challenge colonial and racist logic, thus leaving him with no familiarity–intimate or otherwise–with Arab and Muslim communities, except what he hears in the media. As he brings in his “objective self” to interrogate, question, form opinions and prepare his report, his preconceived hegemonic definition of the situation that has been supplied by the institutionally-supported accusers take hold. He retains the power over the whole process. if one of us escapes judgment we consider ourselves lucky because we already know that the system is lopsided and institutional power has no mercy when one is being attacked by those to whom the rules of transparency and accountability do not apply. As Gayatri Spivak asks in her oft-cited essay, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In a context where power is heavily tilted in favor of the colonizers and when the media reproduces those hegemonic stories, it does not matter what the subaltern says or means. It only matters what members of the dominant group hear, interpret and reproduce because they will apply that interpretation to outcomes that affect and impact the lives of the dominated. This is exactly what’s been going on with this frivolous lawsuit and the reporting by the dominant media and what has been historically happening to Indigenous communities, communities of color, third world communities, the poor and marginalized communities everywhere from 1492 to the present. Volumes have been written and more have been orally passed to younger generations and continue to be experienced every single day. This is why we insist on Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies as a justice-centered project of knowledge production. This is why we engage in the pedagogy of the oppressed and learn and teach how to ethically and responsibly listen and pay attention to the definition of the situation of the marginalized and then subject ourselves to the scrutiny of those from below even if they don’t have the power to pursue us and hold us accountable. We simply cannot afford to have it any other way and at the same time expect to survive as communities, let alone thrive and transform our lives.

Flipping the framing of the lawsuit on its head, Why should Hillel be the embodiment of all things Jewish across time, place and contexts? The organizers refused to allow a member of a privileged white group whose members feel entitled to be represented everywhere and anywhere they deem the event to be of interest irrespective of the event’s goals. Because the organizers dared challenge the status quo, student and faculty organizers have been subjected to systematic interrogation, harassment and administrative retaliation by the university. In this both Hillel and the university frame the fact that Hillel did not have a table at the KYR Fair as anti-Semitic.

Acting as a privileged student group used to getting their way, Hillel demanded and expected to be given whatever it asked for at the Fair, rejecting the Jewish authenticity of Jewish Voice for Peace not only because JVP advocates justice for Palestine but because Hillel believes that it can simply get away with threats and intimidation, irrespective of whether its demands are reasonable or it, fit into the Fair or not, last minute or not. Accepting Hillel’s definition of the situation that the Know Your Rights Fair was anti-Semitic merely because Hillel could not have a table is in itself an Islamophobic, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian and racist act. Proceeding to treat the accused as guilty until proven innocent and allowing the propaganda mill to churn and smear the reputation of students who are at the start of their academic careers is a travesty of justice. Why didn’t SFSU administrators reject these false allegations outright and instead -institute- an inquisition that screams of all sorts of violations of transparency and impartiality?

Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights (SUPER-UW), at the University of Washington. (Photo: SUPER-UW/Facebook)

The first and easy answer is that folks almost intuitively respond to charges of anti-Semitism and they should, given the horrible tragedies that Jews, Roma, communists, homosexuals, and the disabled -experienced as a result -the Holocaust-. The question though is if in fact SFSU administrators and staff are horrified by hatred and racism, why does the Administration jump whenever Hillel or the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) (and now joined by Department of Jewish Studies) complain, but does not respond with the same alarm, swiftness or investigation to other racist incidents? Some SFSU administrators and Staff have responded to Hillel’s false claims regardless whether such complaints are based on reality or contrived to shield Israel under the guise that all Israeli things are Jewish things—an equation that we and our allies and partners in the Jewish community reject.

In fact, our long and painful experiences of the systematic pattern of Islamophobia, anti-Arab discrimination, and hostility to Palestinians at SFSU show the exact opposite—that it is these same SFSU Administrators and Staff who have encouraged, emboldened and themselves have participated in systematic and persistent Islamophobia, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. The same applies to incidents of anti-Blackness, white supremacy and anti-immigrant bigotry under the guise of protecting freedom of speech. It is alarming that CSU has put out a PowerpointPower Point Presentation that justifies and excuses the hatred and racism spewed by David Horowitz, Canary Mission and other racist groups as examples of protected speech.

Individuals and groups make choices regarding what to do in the face of oppression and the members of the U.S. Jewish communities are no exception. Hillel, JCRC (and Department of Jewish Studies) at SFSU and in SF Bay Area chose to cynically misuse anti-Semitism to advance white supremacy and maintain power relations as they see that increasing numbers of U.S. Jews are no longer siding with Israel and making their voices heard that Israel does not speak in their name. In this none of these actors are modeling the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the hundreds of young Israelis who say “NO” – every single day to the butchering of Palestinians, nor of Michael Schwerner and Ruth First who were martyred in the U.S. civil rights movement and the South African anti-Apartheid struggle. Instead, I see Hillel, JCRC, and unfortunately the Department of Jewish Studies, as choosing to be seen as today’s descendants of the former union head of the United Federation of Teachers, Al Shanker, by covering up Nir Barkat’s racist policies and by legitimizing a discredited Israeli government that has consistently denied Palestinian rights, instituted a blockade that aims at starving Gazans into submission (another colonial strategy) and waged three wars on the Strip since the AMED Studies program was founded. During the Oceanhill Brownsville struggle (the New York City teachers’ strike of 1968), Shanker printed anti-Semitic flyers and passed them around as if they were printed by the Black and Puerto Rican parents – to discredit the legitimate struggle of parents and the teachers who were demanding community control over the school board and were-aligned with a diverse coalition including Jewish teachers who rejected Shanker and his racism.

Everyone has a choice. As Bishop Tutu said, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

About Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi

Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi is an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Race and Resistance Studies and the Senior Scholar at the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies at San Francisco State University.

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68 Responses

For those who naively believe that justice is the goal of our legal system, it must come as quite a shock to discover that the Grand Inquisitor is a Jewish Zionist. How did this “downtrodden” people, after 2000 years of alleged hate and anti-Semitism, suddenly become so rich and powerful? It must be a miracle since no other explanation fits with Zionist myth-history. The reality is that the legal system is a means of social control which responds to power. And you can tell who has power by observing who is kicking ass and taking names. Justice? Good luck with that.

Keith: The “lachrymose” conception of Jewish history that you rightly criticize in fact predates Zionism, though the Zionists have made good use of it. But it is opposed from two very different perspectives — that of classical anti-Semitism, which replaces the stereotype of Jewish victimhood by a counter-stereotype of Jewish power, and that of serious scholarship, which rejects generalization and recognizes the enormous variation by time and place as well as the complexity of many situations (Jews have often been privileged in certain respects even as they are persecuted in others).

At least in historical times there has been no “Jewish people” — powerful or powerless, rich or poor. It is only individual Jews and (though not always) their families and communities that can be described as poor or rich, powerful or powerless.

STEPHEN SHENFIELD- “At least in historical times there has been no “Jewish people”….”

Sure there were. They were a people apart united by Classical Judaism living within the surrounding Gentile community and fulfilling specialized economic and social functions. The enlightenment shattered Rabbinic control and encouraged assimilation. According to Israel Shahak, Zionism is a throwback to Classical Judaism insofar as its goal is to avoid assimilation and maintain a sense of Jewish peoplehood. The notion that individual Jews during the period of Classical Judaism were simply individuals who happened to be Jewish and who intermingled with the surrounding Gentile community is, to put it as charitably as I can, simply not true. Our own Yoni Falic has commented on the interesting role which Jews played in the modernization of Europe. Interestingly, Jews made their greatest contribution to history in the Diaspora, not in the backwater Kingdom of David.

Keith – The greatest contribution of the Jews throughout history is without doubt the writing of the Hebrew Bible. This book is the foundation of western civilization, and it is not a Diaspora phenomenon. The kingdom of David might very well have been a “backwater” kingdom, but the memory of that kingdom was the inspiration for writing the Bible.

Anyway, even assuming that you are right (“Jews made their greatest contribution to history in the Diaspora”), all this doesn’t change the simple fact that today Israel has risen up as the most important Jewish center in the world.

“the Hebrew Bible. This book is the foundation of western civilization,”

I expect this sort of tripe from ignorant American Fundamentalists, not from someone who should have had a sound Soviet education.

The Hebrew Bible is influential, but far from being the foundation.
The foundation is a collection of sources.

First, the intellectual heritage of the Graeco-Roman civilization. This included philosophy, literature, science, technology, political systems, and law. Western ethics and western ideas of freedom and equality derive, in large part,initially from Stoic philosophy, which was a major influence on Christian ethical thinking.
This heritage is why European schools traditionally taught Latin and Greek, not Hebrew.

Second, the indigenous intellectual heritage of the various non-Roman groups. This included, again, literature and law. The British Common Law system, and the British Parliament, have their roots in the Anglo Saxons.

Third, the philosophy, science, and technology learned from the Islamic world and China. Many of our mathematical and astronomical terms are Arabic. As far as I know, a portrait of Ibn Sina still hangs in a Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris. Paper, printing, gunpowder, and the magnetic compass came from China.

Fourth, stuff we made up ourselves.

Fifth, in religion, the biggest single influence is the Greek New Testament. The Hebrew Bible is, for Christians, a footnote and prequel to this.

Nathan: “The greatest contribution of the Jews throughout history is without doubt the writing of the Hebrew Bible.”

And how can this text written by Jews for Jews can be a great constribution for Nonjews? Let’s start with the ‘God promised the land of Israel to Jews’ part and how this is still playing out for Nonjews.

Nathan: “This book is the foundation of western civilization, …”

ROFL. Really? The “Hebrew Bible”/Judaism and not the “New Testament”/Christianity?

Jews did not write the Bible. It is as silly to call Judeans and Judaic populations of the Greco-Roman period by the name Jew as it would be to call the Gauls that Julius Caesar fought by the name French.

The Bible, the Mishnah, the Jerusalem Talmud and other Hebrew Aramaic literature of Greco-Roman Palestine were written by the Judean ancestors of Palestinians and certainly not by the pagan Slavic and Turkic ancestors of Nathan or of my family.

It is evidence of Nathan’s pathetic self-loathing that he tries to steal the heritage and history of Palestinians for his own heritage and history.

BTW, if we accept Gemirkin’s hypothesis, the Hebrew Bible was not even written in Palestine but in Egypt. Gmirkin’s book incorrectly uses the term Jews to refer to the authors, but I can think of many reasons why Judaized cleruchs might have been inspired to compose the texts of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles.

If authors were connected with Judaized cleruchs, the composition of the Hebrew Bible could very well have been executed by a non-Judean Judaic group.

Yes, Talkback, it’s really true. The Hebrew Bible is the foundation of western society. The New Testament is obviously a very important text, however the founders of Christianity understood that the New Testament is absolutely incomprehensible without the Hebrew Bible. This is the reason that the Christian Holy Scriptures include the Hebrew Bible. How could anyone understand who Jesus is without knowing the story of King David?

There is a lot more to Western civilization and Western society than Christianity.

And a Christian does not need to know about King David to know that Jesus was the Son of God, incarnated on Earth to redeem humans from their fallen state. That he allegedly fulfilled Jewish prophecies about their Messiah is a side issue.

As I said, from the Christian point of view, the OT is a prequel and a footnote.

Nathan: “Yes, Talkback, it’s really true. The Hebrew Bible is the foundation of western society.”

Yes Nathan, that is really your most briliant argument so far. Why don’t you make a case that the Hebrew bibe is the foundation of Muslime societies based on the same logic and what’s written in the Quran in Verse 2 about Judaism and Christianity?

Nathan: The New Testament is obviously a very important text, ….

Sure Nathan, “very important”, but not as important as the Hebrew bible, right?

“… however the founders of Christianity understood that the New Testament is absolutely incomprehensible without the Hebrew Bible. This is the reason that the Christian Holy Scriptures include the Hebrew Bible. How could anyone understand who Jesus is without knowing the story of King David?”

That one text came preceded another and explains important aspects or the history of the latter doesn’t mean that societies were build on the former. There’s a reason why Christianty calls the Hebrew Bible and other texts “old” testament. It means ‘not longer valid’, “superseded”, “obsolete”, etc. And Western socities were build on what Christianity considered to be valid, etc.

When the NT refers to ‘the scriptures’ the Hebrew (it is rather better to say Hebrew-Greek) scriptures are meant, and the main reasons why you should accept Our Lord Jesus Christ is are that his resurrection was validly witnessed and that the scriptures validate his claims. This meant that the Hebrew Scriptures were indeed built into the foundations of the West as it became Christian, but now in their role as the Old Testament, the translated ancient text interpreted by the newer one. That newer text subtly incorporated a certain heritage from the less authoritative but much larger and more varied pagan tradition, which became the other foundation of the West. It is still a Christian principle, I agree, that Jews had ‘much advantage every way’ as the custodians of the oracles of God.

Of all the comments meant to play down the importance of the Hebrew Bible, Yoni’s comment is surely the most revealing. When I commented that the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron was built by Herod in the first century BC, he told us that Herod was not a Jew. Notice that he didn’t say that Herod didn’t built the structure. Now that I claim that the Hebrew Bible is the foundation of western civilization, Yoni tells us that the book was not written by the Jews. Notice, again, that he’s not saying that the Hebrew Bible is less important than Mooser’s bagels and rogelakh. All that he wishes to establish is that this is not about the Jews. It is an interesting phenomenon in this website. If you want to praise the Jews, it would have to be about Diaspora (Keith’s comment). But if there is something interesting about the Jews in their ancient setting, then the sky falls down. Well, the Hebrew Bible is the most important creation of the Jews, and it was written in their ancient land. Those ancient Jews also built some structures in that land, one of which has survived intact from antiquity and is called by the Arabs the Ibrahimi Mosque. I think that even very extreme anti-Zionists who absolutely detest Israel should be able to handle the news.

It should be noted that the term “Diaspora” means dispersion. Dispersion has a point of reference. Those who were dispersed were dispersed from some geographical point. I hope the sky won’t collapse yet again when I dare name that geographical point of reference of the Diaspora: it’s the Land of Canaan. The Jews of today express their affinity to their ancient land whenever they speak of the Diaspora (in Yiddish, golus – exile).

|| Nathan: … It should be noted that the term “Diaspora” means dispersion. Dispersion has a point of reference. Those who were dispersed were dispersed from some geographical point. I hope the sky won’t collapse yet again when I dare name that geographical point of reference of the Diaspora: it’s the Land of Canaan. The Jews of today express their affinity to their ancient land whenever they speak of the Diaspora … ||

Unlike the Palestinian refugees who continue to wait to return to their homes and lands, the “Jews of today” are not “dispersed” from geographic Palestine. They are citizens of homelands all over the world. Their forefathers for generations before them were citizens of homelands all over the world. Geographic Palestine is not “their ancient land”.

It should be noted logic can be used to establish incontrovertible facts, despite their being quite counter intuitive, Sometimes I beg you Eljay go with intuition,

“Palestine is not “their ancient land” ”

you see it works.

To be honest due to my age, logically, I am not sure i could have an “ancient homeland” anymore than I come from the nebulae out of which the heavy elements of my flesh are constructed, allegedly, its a sort of category error, in logic or something else is wrong with it all, i feel that.

NATHAN- “It should be noted that the term “Diaspora” means dispersion.”

Taking comfort in literal translations? In current common parlance, Diaspora refers to those Jews, primarily converts, outside of the mythical kingdom of Israel. It conotates an ideological mindset rather than a factual point of origin. Ideologically, classical Jews did not consider themselves part of the surrounding Gentile community, particularly the peasants which they hated and helped the Gentile monarchs/nobility to oppress. A point of view which currently manifests itself in total disdain for those living in “flyover country.”

As for the Hebrew bible (Torah, Talmud as well?), you have yet to even begin to make a case that it was even remotely significant in the foundation of Western civilization. Common sense argues that your assertion is utterly false. If true, we would all be converted Jews. Or perhaps Jews would be totally assimilated with their Gentile brothers. Alas, while many Jews wish to fully assimilate, many others, particularly Zionists, wish to remain a people apart, integrated but not assimilated, kinship providing rich rewards.

Getting back to Western civilization, are you saying that the Torah is the basis for Western imperialism, and the ignoble acts which the West has committed against the Third World for the last 500 years?

Some of the Israeli Jews are actually native to Palestine but you are right for the most part. Most of Israeli Jews are recent descendants of foreign transplants who deliberately rejected their birthrights of being citizens of the nation they left. This is a key point I believe. The many Jews who came to Palestine from Europe were far from stateless nor were they returning from a recent exile. They had choices in staying in their home countries or legally migrating elsewhere, which significant amount of European Jews did choose to take.

Those who instead came to Palestine did so with the express intent of forcefully taking the land for themselves, disregarding any objections of the natives and other Jews. Hence, we can safely conclude that all Jewish Israelis are complicit in criminal activity without any worry of being anti-semites.

Only the walls of the Shrine of the Patriarchs come from antiquity. Today’s mosque is a converted crusader church. While some ancient leader commissioned the walls (I proposed two), they were built by the ancestors of the people of Hebron. At the time they practiced the Jerusalem Temple religion, which is much less similar to Rabbinic Judaism than it is to Islam or to Orthodox Christianity (either Syrian, Greek, or Egyptian). Now the people of Hebron practice Islam. The Shrine is among the culture product of their ancestors, Greco-Roman Judeans.

The ancestors of Nathan and of me were Slavs and Turks who converted to Judaism relatively recently in historical time.

The effort of Zios to steal the cultural product, heritage, and ancestry that rightfully belongs to Palestinians is simply despicable and follows German Nazi patterns of essentialism and primordialism so closely that the effort must be considered genocide incitement of the sort that the Nuremberg IMT judged deserving of execution by hanging in the case of Julius Streicher.

Weinreich’s book unfortunately is a product of the time in which it was written and evinces one egregious instance of anti-Palestinian bigotry when he asserts that the killing of Yosef Haim Brenner took place in a pogrom.

The 1921 Riots were part of the legitimate native resistance to the invasion of Palestine by white Euro racist genocidal settler colonist invaders. In such a situation all genocidal invaders are legitimate targets as the Nuremberg IMT tribunal later affirmed.

Modern Jews have only fictional connection to Greco-Roman Judeans, who are ancestors of modern Palestinians. It is important for Palestinians to take this history back from the white Euro racist genocidal colonial settlers and thieves.

When we analyze colloquial Palestinian Arabic, we find that it is clearly relexified Greco-Roman Judean Hebrew/Aramaic.

In their attempt to murder the native culture, the white Euro racist genocidal colonial settlers and thieves have destroyed a treasure trove of linguistic, cultural, and sociological data that covers the period from antiquity to modern times.

This information belongs to the native Palestinians, but it really should have been available to scholars of the whole human race. For this crime of premeditated and calculated destruction, I don’t see how Zios and their supporters can ever be forgiven.

In the Greco-Roman period Judeans, Samarians, Galileans and a vastly larger non-Judean population descended from converts practiced the Samarian or Judean cults.

Conversion to Judaic religion continued into the Middle Ages (the Hussite Rebellion provides a notable example) and into modern times (רמטכ”ל Rafael Eitan was of Russian Subbotnik ancestry).

Thus I am somewhat incorrect to assert that it is merely stupid to call Greco-Roman Judeans by the name Jews.

It is ignorant and stupid to assert that Julius Caesar fought the French during the Gallic Wars. He fought Gauls.

Yet in contrast to modern Jews, who simply do not descend from Greco-Roman Judeans, modern French to a large extent do descend from Greco-Roman Gauls. (Obviously there is also some descent from ancient Frankish tribes, who migrated into Gaul after the Gallic Wars, but the historical data suggests that the migration was rather small.)

Greco-Roman Judeans never left Palestine. They converted to Christianity and then to Islam.

Unlike modern French, who generally descend from ancient Gauls, modern Jews simply do not descend from Greco-Roman Judeans, and anyone that makes such a claim deserves total and unmitigated scorn.

To believe that Polish Jews descended from Greco-Roman Judeans is exactly comparable to believing that Polish Catholics descend from the Judean and Galilean followers of Jesus.

Bont: “They had choices in staying in their home countries or legally migrating elsewhere, which significant amount of European Jews did choose to take.

Those who instead came to Palestine did so with the express intent of forcefully taking the land for themselves, disregarding any objections of the natives and other Jews. Hence, we can safely conclude that all Jewish Israelis are complicit in criminal activity without any worry of being anti-semites.”

I strongly disagree! The Zionists tried to make sure that Palestine was the only option. Jewish refugees for examples prefered the USA over Palestine.

|| gamal: “It should be noted that the term “Diaspora” means dispersion”

It should be noted logic can be used to establish incontrovertible facts, despite their being quite counter intuitive, Sometimes I beg you Eljay go with intuition,

“Palestine is not “their ancient land” ”

you see it works. … ||

Sorry, gamal, but I don’t follow. I disagree with Nathan’s assertion that “the Jews of today” are “dispersed” from geographic Palestine and the region is their “ancient homeland”. Are you suggesting that his assertion is actually an incontrovertible fact with which I should agree?

If that’s not what you’re suggesting, I’m not sure what conclusion you’re begging me to go with intuition to reach.

Could we not afford, Yoni, to use the gentler term ‘cultural’ rather than ‘fictional’ for the connection of medieval and later Jewry with the Second Temple Judaeans? People arose who decided to join this particular one among the religions that were claiming to be the true interpreter of the ancient scriptures. You can adopt a culture as much and as validly as you can inherit it, surely? I certainly think that Zionist ideology relies upon a confusing and arbitrary mix of genetic and cultural continuity, which neither singly nor together justify their claims.

Nathan: “Of all the comments meant to play down the importance of the Hebrew Bible, …”

You are playing down the importance of Christianity on western societies and claim that the Hebrew bible founded them. What’s next? That the French monarchy was more important to Western socities than the French revolution, because one can’t understand the latter without knowing of the former? Or that the French Monarchy founded the societies which came after the French revolution?

Nathan: “It should be noted that the term “Diaspora” means dispersion. Dispersion has a point of reference.”

Yes, it’s reference is the “exile” hoax. Until today not a single Israeli academic is able to disprove that it’s a hoax. And Zionist use that hoax to legitimise a “return” and that Jews who are allegelcy ipso facto descendants of ancient Hebrews have more right to return than Palestinians and their proven ascendants who acatually lived there and were expelled and denationalized by JSIL.

Could we not afford, Yoni, to use the gentler term ‘cultural’ rather than ‘fictional’ for the connection of medieval and later Jewry with the Second Temple Judaeans?

It would be a misleading and dishonest characterization because Euro Jews like my family have nothing in common culturally, religiously, linguistically, socially, intellectually or familially with ancient Judeans while native Palestinians certainly have cultural, religious, linguistic, social, intellectual, and familial continuity with ancient Judeans.

Using “cultural” to describe Euro Jewish connection to ancient Judeans would bring us into the territory of the völkisch racist beliefs of German Nazis and Zionists. Why should we permit their repugnant ideologies to colonize our minds?

It may be an issue of English nuance that I don’t comprehend, but I considered “fictional” the least judgmental term. Other possibilities might be “imaginary” (commonly used by political scientists that analyze nationalist phenomena — strikes me as contemptuous), “delusional”, or “fraud-based”.

I also have to point out that if Euro Jews have a cultural connection to ancient Judeans, don’t Euro Christians have at least as strong cultural connection to ancient Judeans? Christianity in fact has its origin in Greco-Roman Palestine while Rabbinic Judaism originates in Mesopotamia in a much later period.

Having grown up in Israel, I see no reason whatsoever to pander the bigotries of racist and chauvinist Jews.

Nathan is unfamiliar with correct Modern Israeli Hebrew usage, which refers not to Galut (exile) which not exactly the same as Yiddish golus but to התפוצות (Hatfuzot or the Scattered [Communities] or the Diaspora).

Cyrus ended the Babylonian Exile. The Assyrian exiles are lost in history. No Jew today claims delusionally or fraudulently to descend from the Assyrian Exile. For this reason only the Messiah can miraculously redeem and bring the Assyrian Exiles to the Land of Israel. It is a very clever construction of Rabbinical Judaism that moves the Messiah and the messianic age completely out of historical time.

So why did Polish Jews suddenly start believing in the late 18th and early 19th century that they lived in Golus?

This question requires an historian to answer.

Polish Jews did very well in historic Poland as an untitled commercial financial stratum within the Polish 2nd Estate (nobility). Then Polish collapsed and was divided between the Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, and Romanov Empires.

Polish Jewish incomes plunged. Polish Jews had little or no access to the political, financial, or commercial centers of the three empires that replaced Commonwealth Poland — a situation that was terribly difficult for a commercial financial elite. Families were divided by political borders. Suddenly, with having moved anywhere Polish Jews were in Golus, and this changed political circumstance is the source of the somewhat misleading meaning of golus in Yiddish.

BTW, some Diasporas are real. The Greek Diaspora was founded by Greek colonists that left Greece, and in many places remained Greek speaking for 2000-2800 years. In contrast, the scattered Judaic communities were comprised of converts, who never spoke Judean Hebrew-Aramaic and hence often developed Jewish languages which like Yiddish provide further proof of the complete lack of descent of modern Jews from Greco-Roman Judeans.

@Talkback
“You are playing down the importance of Christianity on western societies and claim that the Hebrew bible founded them.”

Actually, I think he is playing up the importance of Christianity on Western societies, and ignoring all the other things I mentioned. Christianity is just one of the things the West inherited from the Graeco-Roman civilization, and it had to fit itself into the social structures that were formed in the process of developing the West. It was certainly influential, but it was also influenced. It is not so much that Christianity made the West Western, but rather that the West made Western Christianity Western.

Here’s a good reason not to believe a gosh darn thing Dr, Abdulhadi says.

She wrote above, that:

“During the Oceanhill Brownsville struggle (the New York City teachers’ strike of 1968), Shanker printed anti-Semitic flyers and passed them around as if they were printed by the Black and Puerto Rican parents..”

But that never happened.
Apparently Dr. Abdulhadi, an educator, didn’t read or comprehend her link to The Nation, which accurately reported what Shanker actually did.

“He [Shanker] circulated 500,000 copies of the anti-Semitic flyer with the statement, “Is this what you want for your children? The U.F.T. says NO!”

Someone had mailed anti Semitic flyers to teachers, so Shankar made copies of the flyers and used them to further his Union’s agenda.

JACKDAW- “He [Shanker] circulated 500,000 copies of the anti-Semitic flyer with the statement, “Is this what you want for your children? The U.F.T. says NO!”

Seems you left out a critical part of the quote. The preceding sentence reads “Shanker was eager to portray community control as bigoted in order to build public support for his union and its disruptive strike.” Also, the story says that “During the strikes, an anonymous anti-Semitic flyer was placed in the mailboxes of some Ocean Hill–Brownsville teachers….” The impression I get were that a FEW pamphlets were placed in some teacher’s (school?) mailboxes. That is, a relatively minor incident which “The community board denounced the leaflet’s message: there was no reason to believe that anti-Semitism was a core value of the community-control movement, which included many prominent Jews.” Then Shanker printed and distributed 50,000 copies of one of the flyers to give the bogus impression of rampant anti-Semitism underlying the efforts at community control. Abdulhadi’s version of events is essentially correct. Shankers actions and your version of events is essentially dishonest. I link the article: https://www.thenation.com/article/tough-lessons-1968-teacher-strikes/

“During the Oceanhill Brownsville struggle (the New York City teachers’ strike of 1968), Shanker printed anti-Semitic flyers and passed them around as if they were printed by the Black and Puerto Rican parents..”

Shanker didn’t print anti Semitic flyers. He copied anti Semitic flyers that others had printed and that others had placed in teacher’s mailboxes.

Of course he printed anti-Semitic flyers. He printed copies of the flyers he obtained. He didn’t use a copy machine. So yes, Abdulhadi could have phrased it better to read that Shanker printed 50,000 copies of an anti-Semitic flyer which he distributed to tar the community control board by innuendo. The flyers’ author(s) was/were anonymous. Did Shanker point that out in his distribution? The board denounced the flyers. Did Shanker point that out in his distribution? Could these limited flyers have been a false flag? Who knows? The point being that Shanker seized upon this opportunity to blatantly misrepresent this attempt at community control as fueled by anti-Semitism, the standard Zionist response to everything. And you have resorted to disingenuous nitpicking to attack Abdulhadi. Shanker acted in bad faith printing and distributing 50,000 copies of an anonymous flyer to falsely imply anti-Semitism to the community control board, and you have acted in bad faith by zeroing in on “printed” versus “printed copies of” to imply some gross misrepresentation of facts, which it was not. Shanker fought community control and he fought dirty.

I was a student in the New York City school system during ‘Ocean Hill/Brownsville’. My mother was a teacher (Substitute). I know for a fact that the NYC school system owned copy machines in 1968.

Dr. Abdulhadi is a defendant in a federal law suit, which is also something I know about because I’m a practicing attorney.

My strong feeling at this time, is that Plaintiffs will overcome Defendant’s Rule 12 b(2) Motion to Dismiss.

If I was Dr Abdulhadi’s lawyer, I’d advise her to clam up, and stop writing on Mondoweiss.

BTW, Keith. Did you read the Independent Investigation Report linked by Palestine Legal?
Putting aside whether the investigating law office can be truly ‘independent’, their report does not exonerate SFSU. Did you read Plaintiff’s Complaint?

Common sense dictates that you don’t use a copy machine to make 50,000 copies of the same piece of paper. But if you can confirm that Shanker spent a lot of extra money to “copy” the flyer rather than “print” copies of the flyer, feel free to make the point that you feel justified to split hairs over copy versus print. The significant point being that he printed/copied 50,000 (50,000 for God sake) copies of an anonymous flyer that had limited distribution and, thanks to Shanker, now had very large circulation, which he dishonestly used to tar his opponents as anti-Semites.

JACKDAW- “Dr. Abdulhadi is a defendant in a federal law suit, which is also something I know about because I’m a practicing attorney.”

One doesn’t have to be a “practicing attorney” to read the first paragraph of an article about lawfare. And I have read enough to know that these lawfare and other Zionist tactics of intimidation are those of an empowered group, not some threatened minority. Your attempts to smear Dr. Abulhadi are precisely what the article discusses. Practicing attorney? More like an attack dog with a law degree, assuming that you are being honest about that one area.

“And I have read enough to know that these lawfare and other Zionist tactics of intimidation are those of an empowered group, not some threatened minority. ”

What about those lawsuits where Palestinian plaintiffs bring suit against Zionist tax exempt donors and businesses that further settlement in Judea and Samaria? One suit that comes to mind is al Tamimi v Adelson, et al.

Palestinian plaintiffs seem to be engaged in lawfare, as well. Intimidation?

JACKDAW- “Palestinian plaintiffs seem to be engaged in lawfare, as well. Intimidation?”

You should be ashamed of comparing the feeble efforts of the Palestinian resistance to the Jewish Zionist legal juggernaut. The Palestinians don’t have the deep pockets of you Zionists to engage in these types of legal/financial harassment. It takes power to do these types of things along with a lack of conscience. In view of all of the Jewish organizations and Jewish money dedicated to squelching any hint of anti-Zionism on campus, the very notion of Jews being intimidated and fearful is hard to believe, unless it is a manifestation of self-induced paranoia encouraged by Zionist ideology. Your protestations of fat-cat victimhood reflect your fear of any challenge to Zionist power and power seeking. Of course, there is always the possibility of a backlash thanks to your aggressive hostility towards those who may impinge upon Jewish Zionist power and privilege.

“Your protestations of fat-cat victim hood reflect your fear of any challenge to Zionist power and power seeking. ”

Pro Palestine attorneys, pro bono, have filed suits against Zionist donors, tax free charities, businesses operating in Judea and Samaria. These suits have been, or will be dismissed because the Palestinians claims are unconstitutional.
The Washington D.C. District Court case Aziz v Treasury, was recently dismissed for ‘lack of standing’. (Appeal filed).

There is little to fear when the United States Supreme Court has already taken your side.

JACKDAW- “There is little to fear when the United States Supreme Court has already taken your side.”

The dirty little secret of our legal system is that the laws are written by the powerful to maintain existing power relationships. As such, the law amends itself to power and the Supreme Court reflects this. In effect, you make my point. Palestinian supporters are relatively weak, Jewish Zionists are relatively powerful, hence, you have nothing to fear, claims of “intimidation” a sick joke.

“The dirty little secret of our legal system is that the laws are written by the powerful to maintain existing power relationships. ”

You arguments are becoming increasing desperate and diffuse.

The US Supreme Court interprets, and is guided by, the Constitution. Article III, ‘standing’, and non judicial ‘political questions’, go to Constitutional Law issues that date back to the early 1800’s.

Consider the Alien Tort Act of 1797, which decides what tort action a non citizen can bring to a United States Court. It cuts equally against both Palestinian and Israeli citizens who want to start an action in the US courts.

Damn. I missed this stoush when it was fresh. There is a very good argument to be made that the Hebrew Bible has slowed the development of Human Society considerably. Had the Library at Alexandria not been destroyed and the Hellenic tradition of logic prevailed, chances are we would be a civilized bunch by now.

Nathan is unfamiliar with correct Modern Israeli Hebrew usage, which refers not to Galut (exile) which is not exactly the same as Yiddish golus but to התפוצות (Hatfuzot or the Scattered [Communities] or the Diaspora).

Cyrus ended the Babylonian Exile. The Assyrian exiles are lost in history. No Jew today claims delusionally or fraudulently to descend from the Assyrian Exile. For this reason only the Messiah can miraculously redeem and bring the Assyrian Exiles to the Land of Israel. It is a very clever construction of Rabbinical Judaism that moves the Messiah and the messianic age completely out of historical time.

So why did Polish Jews suddenly start believing in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that they lived in Golus?

This question requires an historian to answer.

Polish Jews did very well in historic Poland as an untitled commercial financial stratum within the Polish 2nd Estate (nobility). Then Poland collapsed and was divided between the Hapsburg, Hohenzollern, and Romanov Empires.

Polish Jewish incomes plunged. Polish Jews had little or no access to the political, financial, or commercial centers of the three empires that replaced Commonwealth Poland — a situation that was terribly difficult for a commercial financial elite. Families were divided by political borders. Suddenly, with having moved anywhere Polish Jews were in Golus, and this changed political circumstance is the source of the somewhat misleading meaning of golus in Yiddish.

BTW, some Diasporas are real. The Greek Diaspora was founded by Greek colonists that left Greece (never intending to return), and in many places remained Greek speaking for 2000-2800 years. In contrast, the scattered Judaic communities were comprised of descendants of converts, who never spoke Judean Hebrew-Aramaic and hence often developed Jewish languages which like Yiddish provide further proof of the complete lack of descent of modern Jews from Greco-Roman Judeans.

“Yoni”, if a comment is still being edited when the edit period (10-20 minutes?) is over, when you hit ‘post’ the entire comment disappears, until you refresh the page, and an unedited copy of the comment appears, now past any editing (although it may still be in moderation stage)

Keith – I wonder why you claim that the Kingdom of Israel is a myth. Perhaps you have never studied any archeology. Take note of the fact that the Kingdom of Israel has been found in quite a number of inscriptions. In recent years, an inscription was discovered at Tel-Dan in which the Aramean king brags that he killed the king of Israel and the king of the House of David in the same day (it turns out that David is also an historic figure, mentioned here for the first time outside the Bible in a Biblical era inscription). The Mesha Stone, found in what is today Jordan in the 19th century, was written by the the king of Moab. He tells us of his rebellion against the Kingdom of Israel. When you visit Paris, you can see it for yourself at the Louvre.

I would imagine that your defining the Kingdom of Israel as a myth is not just a result of ignorance (i.e. you didn’t study archeology); rather, it is an ideological position. Once upon a time, the anti-Zionists used to say something like this: “The ancient Hebrew kingdoms do not justify the founding of a Jewish state in modern times….” However, I see now that today’s anti-Zionists do feel uncomfortable with Jewish history. They seem to feel that if there was a Kingdom of Judah / Israel (or if today’s Jews are descendants of the ancient Jews), then this would legitimize the birth of Israel. The Palestinians, too, are busy denying the existence of the Temple, and their tour guides will show you the palace of a “great king” in Sebastia while refusing to utter the name of the kingdom or the name of the king (King Ahab of Israel who is also mentioned in an Assyrian inscription as having 2000 chariots). I think that somehow you should be able to present your anti-Israel position without having to make believe all the time. However, if indeed you feel that your ideology depends on denying history, then you are really in trouble. There was a Kingdom of Israel, there was a Kingdom of Judah, and today’s Jews are descendants of the ancient tribes of Israel (and, yes, many converts have joined them throughout history).

In the 1920’s, the Waqf published an English-language pamphlet for tourists visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They brag that the mosque was built on the site of the ancient Jewish Temple (and it’s honorable)! Today, in the updated pamphlet, the existence of the Temple is mere “rumor”. Apparently, the anti-Zionists and the Palestinians have gone through a similar process of intellectual cowardice.

NATHAN- “Keith – I wonder why you claim that the Kingdom of Israel is a myth.”

Let us begin by noting that this is a comment nonsequiter. Whatever it is that I said which pissed you off is nowhere to be found on this thread, unless you are referring to my comment about the backwater kingdom of David? If you wish to comment on a comment I made, why make your comment so difficult to reference? Everything I have read on this topic indicates that the REAL kingdom of David was relatively small and inconsequential, whereas, the mythical kingdom of David put the Roman empire to shame. Jewish power and accomplishment peaked during the Diaspora, deal with it. Jewish power is at its high point now, something which a Zionist such as yourself seeks to defend and justify.

Here’s your comment, Keith: “…..Diaspora refers to those Jews, primarily converts, outside of the mythical kingdom of Israel”. It’s on this page above (July 25). I really doubt that you have come across a claim somewhere that the mythical kingdom of David put the Roman Empire to shame. First of all, no one has ever claimed that the Roman Empire was put to shame. The Roman Empire soundly defeated the Jews in antiquity, and everyone knows it. Secondly, except for you, no one places the kingdom of David together with the Roman Empire. The House of David ended in 586 BC, whereas the conquest of Judea by the Romans was in the year 63 BC. It’s hard to understand why you feel the need to invent such claims in the first place. Why would an anti-Zionist feel the need to claim that the Kingdom of Israel was mythical? I would imagine that one could be anti-Israel while at the very same time be aware of the fact that in antiquity there was an Israelite kingdom (and a Kingdom of Judah, as well). As you say – deal with it.

Modern research raises the likelihood that David’s kingdom was indeed quite small. However, you shouldn’t conclude that it was inconsequential. The very fact that we are talking about it indicates that it has left its impact on civilization. Indeed, the writing of the Hebrew Bible was a project of the House of David, and the Jewish civilization is totally focused on David (the messianic idea).

No doubt something was unearthed which will be claimed to have biblical relevance. According to Keith Whitelam (“The Invention of Ancient Israel”), they do archaeology backwards in Israel. Instead of analyzing artifacts to see what they are, Israelis search for anything which can be claimed to fit some biblical description. This has been going on intensively for over 70 years with little to show, and even that questionable. Uri Avnery discusses this phenomenon:

“So, with the coming of the Zionists to Palestine, a frantic archeological search started. The country was combed for real, scientific proof that the Biblical story was not just a bunch of myths, but real honest-to-God history. (Pun intended.) Christian Zionists came even earlier.
….
From the beginning of the effort to this very day, not a single piece of evidence of the ancient history was found. Not a single indication that the exodus from Egypt, the basis of Jewish history, ever happened. Nor of the 40 years of wandering in the desert. No evidence of the conquest of Canaan, as described at length in the Book of Joshua. The mighty King David, whose kingdom extended – according to the Bible – from the Sinai peninsula to the north of Syria, did not leave a trace. (Lately an inscription with the name David was discovered, but with no indication that this David was a king.)” (Uri Avnery) https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/02/the-connection-between-archaeology-and-ideology-in-the-middle-east/

“Lately an inscription with the name David was discovered, but with no indication that this David was a king.)”

The broken and fragmentary inscription commemorates the victory of an Aramean king over his two southern neighbors: the “king of Israel” and the “king of the House of David.” In the carefully incised text written in neat Aramaic characters, the Aramean king boasts that he, under the divine guidance of the god Hadad, vanquished several thousand Israelite and Judahite horsemen and charioteers before personally dispatching both of his royal opponents. Unfortunately, the recovered fragments of the “House of David” inscription do not preserve the names of the specific kings involved in this brutal encounter, but most scholars believe the stela recounts a campaign of Hazael of Damascus in which he defeated both Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah.
Parts of the names of two kings are preserved in Fragment B: Joram, son of Ahab, king of Israel from 852 to 841 BC, and Ahaziah, son of Jehoram, king of Judah (the House of David) in 841 BC. With this new information it is possible to assign the stela to Hazael, king of Aram-Damascus, who undoubtedly set it up in Dan to commemorate his victory over Joram and Ahaziah at Ramoth-Gilead in ca. 841 BC (2 Kgs 8:28–29).http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/artifacts-and-the-bible/the-tel-dan-inscription-the-first-historical-evidence-of-the-king-david-bible-story/

Lemche 1998, p. 41: “The inscription is kept in a kind of “pidgin” Aramaic, sometimes looking more like a kind of mixed language in which Aramaic and Phoenician linguistic elements are jumbled together, in its phraseology nevertheless closely resembling especially the Mesha inscription and the Aramaic Zakkur inscription from Aphis near Aleppo. The narrow links between the Tel Dan inscription and these two inscriptions are of a kind that has persuaded at least one major specialist into believing that the inscription is a forgery. This cannot be left out of consideration in advance, because some of the circumstances surrounding its discovery may speak against its being genuine. Other examples of forgeries of this kind are well known, and clever forgers have cheated even respectable scholars into accepting something that is obviously false.”

also from wiki:

The Tel Dan inscription generated considerable debate and a flurry of articles, debating its age, authorship, and authenticity;[6] however, the stele is generally accepted by scholars as genuine and a reference to the House of David…scholars have disputed the reference to David, due to the lack of a word divider between byt and dwd, and other translations have been proposed. The stele was not excavated in its primary context, but in its secondary use.[2]

more on its not excavated in its primary context, but in its secondary use:

Aaron Demsky (2007), Reading Northwest Semitic Inscriptions, Near Eastern Archaeology 70/2. Quote: “The first thing to consider when examining an ancient inscription is whether it was discovered in context or not. It is obvious that a document purchased on the antiquities market is suspect. If it was found in an archeological site, one should note whether it was found in its primary context, as with the inscription of King Achish from Ekron, or in secondary use, as with the Tel Dan inscription. Of course texts that were found in an archaeological site, but not in a secure archaeological context present certain problems of exact dating, as with the Gezer Calendar.”

Diffuse? What, am I starting to spread out? You, however, have become desperate, grasping at straws. Good grief, your link is to the “Biblical Archaeological Society,” a group dedicated to demonstrating the historical accuracy of the bible. Bias linking bias. Even then it says that this little crap-ass tablet is the “first historical evidence of King David.” Imagine that. A massive effort over many decades and this debatable writing on a slab is the FIRST reference to the mighty King David? How does this compare to the ruins in Egypt, Greece and Rome? Find any evidence of the parting of the Sea or the wandering in the dessert? What Uri Avnery says still stands. Decades of massive biased research with precious little to show for it. The Hebrew bible is not a historical document. Deal with it.

Keith – Uri Avnery is a journalist. He is a former member of the Knesset. Although he is a very intelligent man, nevertheless he is not a Bible scholar nor an archeologist. His references to the kingdom of David are given in the context of presenting a political position.

Avnery was a member of the Irgun and also a soldier in the 1948 war. His memoirs of the war are interesting and insightful (“In the Fields of the Philistines”), however his comments about antiquity are generally not.

The Hebrew Bible was not written in order to present history. It was written in order to found Judaism. However, much historical information can be found therein. There have been cases of archeological discoveries that give an identical story to that which the Bible presents. For example, the chonicles of the Babylonians have been uncovered in Iraq. The chronicles tell of the anti-Babylonian rebellion of the Kingdom of Judah, and the fine which was imposed on Judah in 597 BC appears both in the Hebrew Bible and in the Babylonian chronicles (and the sum is identical). By the way, even Uri Avnery would tell you that the stories from King Hezekiah and later are real history. I can’t imagine that you have studied the Hebrew Bible or the archeology of the ancient Middle East. Your comments are based on some ideological ax that you wish to grind – hence, the Kingdom of Israel is mythological and King David is inconsequential. It’s beyond me why you feel that the anti-Israel position is based on pooh-poohing the story of ancient Israel.

NATHAN- It’s beyond me why you feel that the anti-Israel position is based on pooh-poohing the story of ancient Israel. ”

What anti-Israel position? The original impetus for all of this was my comment that the Diaspora was the height of Jewish accomplishment, not the mythological kingdom of David. It is quite interesting the extent to which Zionists go to deny Jewish power and accomplishment in the (ideological) Diaspora, yet try to wildly exaggerate some mythological kingdom of a people who have no significant connection to the Jewish converts in “Diaspora.” To acknowledge the insignificance of the kingdom of David and embrace the accomplishments of the Diaspora would be to collapse the entire foundation of Zionism. And that is why this BS continues. And that is why countless “scholars” debase themselves to earn a living. Money-power can purchase intellectual complicity which, after all, is how intellectuals earn their living. At least Uri Avnery doesn’t depend upon scholarly prostitution to earn a shekel. A couple of quotes for you:

“What evidence is there that the Temple of Solomon existed?

The only evidence is the Bible. There are no other records describing it, and to date there has been no archaeological evidence of the Temple at all. What’s more, other archaeological sites associated with King Solomon – palaces, fortresses and walled cities that seemed to match places and cities from the Bible – are also now in doubt.

There is a growing sense among scholars that most of these archaeological sites are actually later than previously believed. Some now believe there may be little or no archaeological evidence of King Solomon’s time at all, and doubt that he ruled the vast empire which is described in the Bible.” (BBC) http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/solomon_qa.shtml

“The Bible describes it as a glorious kingdom stretching from Egypt to Mesopotamia. Does archeology back up these descriptions?

The stories of Solomon are larger than life. According to the stories, Solomon imported 100,000 workers from what is now Lebanon. Well, the whole population of Israel probably wasn’t 100,000 in the 10th century. Everything Solomon touched turned to gold. In the minds of the biblical writers, of course, David and Solomon are ideal kings chosen by Yahweh. So they glorify them.
Now, archeology can’t either prove or disprove the stories. But I think most archeologists today would argue that the United Monarchy was not much more than a kind of hill-country chiefdom. It was very small-scale.” (PBS/William Dever) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/archeology-hebrew-bible.html

Annie Robbins – As soon as the inscription was discovered at Tel-Dan, there were claims that it’s a forgery. Of course, the inscription is authentic. The really interesting question is: Why is it important for anti-Israel people to try and cast doubts as to the authenticity of the inscription? Do you feel that the anti-Zionist ideological position will be weakened if it turns out that indeed there was a King David? Very strange. There shouldn’t be a difficulty presenting your political position without having to play this game of “let’s make believe”. Apparently, many anti-Zionists think that it’s important to deny the history of the Jews in antiquity (the Palestinians are also busy in this effort). If the existence of the Kingdom of Israel in antiquity is an ideological problem for you, you’ll have to learn to live with it. There was such a kingdom, and there was a Temple in Jerusalem, and David really existed, and King Herod of Judea built the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Ibrahimi Mosque).

BTW, the Aramaic inscription discovered at tel-Dan is written in the Canaanite alphabet (not in “neat Aramaic characters”). Aramaic characters developed from the Canaanite script at a later time in history. It’s presented today in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and it is well worth a visit. It has absolutely nothing to do with the conflict in the Middle East.

In around 2000 years time ( subject to the Ziofreaks not having triggered Armaggeddon ) archaeologists in Holywood will no doubt unearth conclusive evidence that the Emerald City, Dorothy,the Scarecrow ,the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion existed.

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